Speed up discipline cases

Our opinion: Taxpayers should not be on the hook for years paying for bad public employees.

When the evidence of misconduct is compelling, how long should an accused public employee keep receiving pay while out on leave?

Two recent cases in Albany prompt this legitimate and thorny question.

We learned details last week about an Albany City School District administrator who has been on paid leave for over a year. The suspension of Gregory Jones stemmed from multiple allegations of sexual abuse and bullying against him by four women who are teachers at New Scotland Elementary School, where he was the principal.

In an unusual and questionable deal brokered between Mr. Jones and the school district, and approved this month by the Board of Education, he gets to stay on the payroll as a “principal on special assignment” assisting in the implementation of the Common Core learning standards.

Mr. Jones has agreed to resign by next February, as part of the arrangement that conveniently allows him to complete 20 years in the teacher pension system.

In this newly created role, Mr. Jones will be continue to be paid his annual salary of $127,397, but don’t expect to see him around the district offices. A district spokesman says the work will be done without the administrator having to enter any of the district’s buildings.

This comes even after the state Division of Human Rights examined the allegations against Mr. Jones and found there to be probable cause. Now, the teachers are suing both the administrator and the school district.

The case of another public employee in Albany underscores the issue. A police officer who has been on paid suspension since his DWI arrest in 2010 is now fighting the city’s latest attempt to fire him. Officer Brian Lutz is contesting an arbitrator’s ruling that he be fired.

The city had already fired Mr. Lutz once, soon after his arrest, only to have an appeals court order his return with full back pay. The ruling weighed whether a police officer can do his job after his driver’s license was suspended. The court said he could.

These two cases evoke the situation in New York City a few years ago when it was reported teachers accused of wrongdoing sometimes remained on the payroll for years, spending their “workdays” in “rubber rooms” doing nothing, awaiting disciplinary action.

It was only after the public outcry over the immense cost to taxpayers of the long drawn out process to discipline public employees that things changed. Both the unions and the city pledged to find ways to expedite things. It also fueled the statewide push for more teacher accountability.

Such efforts are needed throughout the public employment system to shorten the time it takes for cases to be resolved. If more arbitrators or other resources are needed to expedite the removal of bad employees, it’s a small price to pay.

Certainly public employees deserve fair and impartial consideration. But the taxpayers — the people who ultimate pay the bills — deserve some justice too.

Mama Mia says:
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March 31, 2014 at 5:44 am
You mention that pension considerations are at stake. Not only the one year in this case but reaching a critical 20 year milestone. Of course it will be the lawyers who win in the end with the lawsuit. Jones should be at the lowest pay scale to save costs for defraying lawsuit charges if they must keep him on. Same for Lutz. As a public safety officer you are held to a higher standard for conduct. This also goes for legislator felons and abusers of many stripes. It adds insult to injury for both the directly involved parties and the general public. Unconscionable.

Hopefully the TU can re-examine the millions spent on bad teachers and administrators in NYC, last story shed light on the $60+ millions spent on people sitting in rooms doing nothing all day as it was too costly to fire them.

Cuomo and DeBlasio want their pre-K funding? Well, it is sitting in rooms doing nothing all day.

WOW, as an Albany taxpayer I am OUTRAGED at this. Taxes are high, as we well know, and the schools are LOUSY. If this was a private school the principal would not still be getting paid after this debacle. Who is to blame for this, the teachers union? Yeah, lets make sure he gets his pension, this is a bunch of BULL.

The referenced article is about “the Left” not “Liberals”. The two aren’t the same thing, and when it comes to Europe, which a large part of the article is about, they would look at you like you had two heads if you equated the two.

In any case the article is full of logical and factual errors along with being just plain dishonest, which is about what you’d expect from a wing-nut “Deputy Editorial Page Director of the Wall Street Journal and a Fox News contributor.”